Indonesian child is latest H5N1 fatality

Oct 24, 2007 (CIDRAP News) – A health ministry official in Indonesia said yesterday that a 4-year-old girl from Banten province died Oct 22 of H5N1 avian influenza.

Lily Sulistyowati, a health ministry spokeswoman, said the girl was hospitalized 2 days before her death, according to a Reuters report yesterday.

Nyoman Kandun of the health ministry said investigators concluded that the girl had had contact with dead poultry in her neighborhood, according to an Associated Press report.

If the girl's case is confirmed by the World Health Organization (WHO), it will be listed as Indonesia's 110th H5N1 case and 89th fatal one.

The girl is from the same western suburb of Jakarta—Tangerang—as the country's most recent WHO-confirmed case-patient, a 12-year-old boy who died on Oct 13. The WHO confirmed the boy as the country's 88th avian flu victim on Oct 17.

Also, Xinhua, China's state news agency, reported yesterday that seven children between the ages of 1 and 10 from Riau province on Sumatra were hospitalized with suspected avian influenza.

Two days ago, Indonesia's health minister told Xinhua that a 10-year-old girl from Riau had died of avian flu, but other ministry officials later denied the claim, according to a report from Agence France-Presse.

Indonesia leads the world in H5N1 cases and deaths. The WHO's global H5N1 count currently stands at 331 cases and 203 deaths.